rothbury

Tupper10, the way I understood her it was the lower dining room for the early seating. Fixed seating for the upper dining room was open for reservations. I have a call into my PCC, but they don't or won't usually tell you what group it is. KAKcruiser, I'm going to withhold final payment until more information becomes available. If there is a large group, I'll look for another date. The website is so screwed up it is hard to find 2026 itineraries.

Sorry I don't have much information. I booked a 2026 cruise on the Rotterdam yesterday. Feb 20 departure. I was told the lower dining room was unavailable for this cruise. I guess as we get closer to 2026 there might be more details.

1971, Greek Lines TSS Olympia.

Sailed out of FLL on March 6 and took this picture. Looks like it will be a while before we get that sail away camera back!

It was just around the ship on a dressy night.

Was on the Eurodam March 6 - 16. On dressy nights saw everything from tux to t-shirts and shorts. In the MDR actually saw t-shirt and blue jeans and baseball caps a couple of times on casual nights. There didn't seem to be any enforcement of a dress code in the dining room, fixed seating.

Embarked on the Eurodam on March 6, NO luncheon on a 10 day cruise. Mariner or otherwise. 3 sea days and no awards ceremony or Mariner luncheon. Saw medallions and pins sitting in the mail slots about 8 days into the cruise. The MDR was open for lunch on sea days. Same menu every time.

My experience with Global Entry is since covid it doesn't help for cruising. There is no CBP personnel and as previously stated it is just facial recognition.

I put chair hogs in the same category as the person who parks in a handicapped spot so they can, "Run into the store to pick up something". There are selfish people everywhere. No matter the circumstances.

Thanks to both of you! Had a feeling HAL had it covered. Ours is a morning tour so I guess they'll give us instructions on when and where to meet.

Just to be clear. I have experienced late departures because of inconsiderate people so I'm not trying to sound like I am defending late arrivals. However, I have a question that doesn't seem to have been addressed. We are taking a cruise in a couple of months and it includes a stop in Belize which is a tender port. Can somebody who is familiar with the procedure tell me, if you are on a HAL excursion, and it involves a tender, how do they handle getting the excursion group off the ship and on to a tender so that you aren't the late arrival? We all know how the lines for tender waits can be long. I'm just curious.

I'm hoping they are looking for different ports of call for 2026. The standard ports are getting too crowded with ships and just how many times can you go to St. Maarten and walk the 2 or 3 blocks that comprise that port. Now that Nassau has replaced Key West it is not unusual to have 5 or 6 ships in port on any given day. They keep building bigger ships and overloading ports. I'm expecting more places to either ban ships or restrict the number of ships. Maybe, just maybe, HAL is looking for alternatives for future seasons.

BBB ratings are a scam. The companies pay a fee to BBB to use their name. The more you pay to BBB the higher your ratings will be.

Same thing I have been saying for several cruise seasons now. You would think HAL would put some real effort into finding an alternative to Key West. Last season we were redirected to Nassau by a letter in our mailbox when we embarked. They are doing the same thing with several cruises again this season. Earlier this week (I think Tuesday) there were 7 cruise ships in Nassau which is how many berths they have. Have you ever been to Nassau with 6 other cruise ships. Not worth getting off the ship.

After looking at the map and seeing Key West as a port of call, I had my doubts. Our Key West stop was been replaced with Nassau last year and again this year. I see Rotterdam is going to various ports, but Key West isn't one of them. I don't understand why HAL even lists Key West on their itineraries at this point. I would have thought they knew before the 2023-2024 season got started that Key West wasn't going to happen.